


In Your Heart Shall Burn an Unquenchable Flame

by BloodMagic



Series: Dragon Age: Fluff [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hypothermia, Near Death Experiences, Solavellan mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3692391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodMagic/pseuds/BloodMagic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Y'all know the drill by now: I like to torture my boy Cullen with angst because I am RUDE. <br/>On the menu today: a moment that actually takes place in-game *fanfare*. Cassandra and Cullen find [Narvi; it's always Narvi] Lavellan half-dead in the snow in the aftermath of the attack on Haven. Cullen realizes he's in waaaay too deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Heart Shall Burn an Unquenchable Flame

She had long since lost all feeling in her fingers and toes. The back of her throat had gone from mere 'cold' to pained, and finally to numb. Somehow, Narvi kept putting one foot in front of the other. The edges of her vision were growing darker in a way that had nothing to do with the waning moonlight. There was nothing for it: she was fading away. She was doomed to die alone on top of this mountain. The Inquisition would move on without her, but without the mark on her hand, that thing Corypheus had called an 'anchor', the rifts around Thedas would grow.

Maybe that was what kept her moving. Thedas could not afford for her to die. She could not let them all down.

Narvi wondered if they found her frozen corspe in the snow, if they cut off her left hand and found a way to preserve it, if they would be able to use it to close the rifts, or if she had to be alive to work the magic herself.

"There she is!" she heard a voice cry out. It sounded a thousand miles away.

"Thank the Maker!" another voice answered. Narvi dimly registered that the voices belonged to Cullen and Cassandra, respectively. Relief flooded through her; if those two were near enough at hand that she could hear them, then she must be safe. Or she was dead and imagining them. In that case it wouldn't make much sense for her to be hearing the voices of such strong devotees of Andraste. So she must be alive, right?

It didn't matter either way. The darkness closed in around her eyes and she fell to her knees.

If she was alive, they would find her. If she was dead, she could rest in peace.

* * *

 

Cassandra pulled up short when she saw Narvi fall. She only just caught the torch Cullen handed off to her before he sprinted up the mountain. With two recruits at her back, Cassandra collected herself and followed him. The driving snow slowed all of their paces, but even without light and with the added weight of his half plate armor, Cullen still reached her before anyone else.

He caught Narvi round the shoulders as she fell forward; instead of face-planting into the snow, she landed in the fur collar of his surcoat. Her body went completely limp and she slumped against him.

"Is she alright?" Cassandra asked as she caught up to them. In the light of the torches, Cullen lifted Narvi's face to look at her.

Her ears were dark red and her lips a purplish blue. Her cobalt vallaslin, normally so vibrant and distinctive against her golden tanned skin, now blurred into her flesh so he could hardly tell what was tattoo and what was mottling from hypothermia.

She was going to die if they didn't get her warm right away. She might die anyway. Cullen shook his head, denied the possibility that after everything, after finally finding her again, he might lose her for real.

Without a word spoken—though any number of verses from the Chant whirled silently through his head—Cullen hooked one forearm behind Narvi's knees and lifted her into his arms as easily and naturally as he might have taken up his own shield in battle.

She looked so _small_ then. Cullen had never seen her look small. Narvi was an elf, physically average for her race in many respects: she was shorter than a human and had the slender skeleton and fit musculature typical of the nomadic Dalish. From a completely physical perspective, she _was_ small, no doubt about it. But she had never _appeared_ small, and that was something much more difficult to quantify. Narvi had a large presence that exceeded her physical form, an aura of sorts that demanded both attention and respect.

That was what looked small now. He was reminded of a moment, before he officially took orders and became a templar, when he was assigned to keep vigil in a local village Chantry. The older knights and the supervising Mother said to him, "Young man, this is a practice for the vigil you will keep when you complete your training and earn your place in the templar ranks." They went on to tell him it was imperative that he remain kneeling before a statue of Andraste all through the night, and that he must keep his mind clear of any thoughts other than those of the Chant. For the first few hours it was easy enough to follow their directives, Cullen found. He had always been a good student, and he wanted to do right by the order when he finally became a real templar knight. But a curious thing happened around him: there was a slight draft around the Chantry's old doorways and window seals, and one by one the candles began sputtering out on their own. Toward the end of his vigil, Cullen became distracted by the fact that of the dozens of candles that had been lit when he began, there was now only one still burning. All alone it struggled to send its light out to every corner of the building, but it was just one candle. At that moment, he was struck by the candle's solitary struggle, and he thought it was some kind of metaphor, a sign of keeping faith alive in the face of adversity. He broke from his prescribed kneeling position and took up the candle, carried it back with him and set it before the statue of Andraste. He took up his position again, but instead of reciting the Chant he kept his hands around the last flame, protected it from going out. When he admitted what he had done to his supervisors, the older knights scoffed and told him he had failed, but the Mother took him aside. Compassion is just as important as determination for a templar who truly wishes to do the Maker's work, she said to him. His need to protect that candle was a sign that he had both.

That was what Narvi looked like to him now, Cullen thought. Her spirit had been reduced to a single candle, and it fought valiantly to keep the spark of her life coursing through her body. Alas, but it was only one flame, and it could barely keep her alive, much less fuel the aura that normally radiated from her. His hands tightened; he had kept that one flame alight once. He could do it again, couldn't he? His pace toward the Inquisition's makeshift camp quickened. Of the two qualities the old Mother had tried to impart to him, he thought determination was by far the more useful one in this moment. Even Cassandra struggled to keep up with his breakneck pace.

Narvi awoke once on the way down the mountain. It was small, and quick, and afterward she didn't seem to remember doing it at all, but her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him.

"Cullen?" she asked hoarsely, almost inaudibly. He heard her and met her eyes, promised her she was going to be alright, whatever it took.

She smiled at him. Well, he chose to take it as a smile. It was an attempt at a smile in any case. Then her face turned inward, disappeared into the vast fluff of his furry collar. Clumsy, frostbitten hands followed, buried themselves in the fur, curled as well as they could around individual locks. Her chest moved with her shallow breaths.

"Please don't die now," he pleaded with her, though he suspected—correctly, it turned out—that she did not hear him. "I can't lose you."

That was a foolish thing to say, he berated himself. What did it mean in the end? She was not his to lose.

He could rationalize, justify his words with the reality that both of them were critical to the Inquisition's success. As an organization, they could not survive without all of the founding members ready for action. The _Inquisition_ had very nearly lost the Herald of Andraste. Now they had her back within their grasp, and they could not afford to let her slip again.

That wasn't what he meant, and he knew it. Much as it killed him to admit it to himself, Cullen knew he wasn't thinking on behalf of the Inquisition in that moment. No, he was thinking entirely of his own interest. Not that he had any right to do so. He had no personal claim to Narvi Lavellan.

She had always been kind to him, in a polite sort of way that left him wondering whether she really liked him or if she was just being diplomatic to smooth over the fact that she was a wild mage and he a former templar. The latter always seemed more likely as a motivator, but her smiles and her generous words never struck him as insincere regardless of what actually caused them. Perhaps that was what allowed him to hope. For a while. It became clear to him all too quickly where her true affection lay, and it was with Solas.

Why not? They were both elves, both apostates, both had a strong interest in the Fade even without the necessity of studying it for the purpose of understanding the rifts and the Breach. They seemed compatible in every major way, and their minor differences could be reconciled. Solas's interest in her—not just her mark, but _her—_ was visible to anyone who happened to stand with the pair of them in their line of sight. The way he turned his entire body toward her and even leaned in her direction when they talked. The way his voice inflected upwards like he was biting back a grin when he saw her approach. The blush in the tips of his ears when she laughed. Solas had it bad, at _least_ as bad as Cullen himself did.

Narvi was a bit more skilled at hiding her own interest, but she did always seem to come away from a conversation with him with a spring in her step and a slight flush in her cheeks. The difference was faint, the kind of thing few people would notice. Varric, perhaps, might have known; his storyteller's eyes missed few details and he seemed eager to observe the Herald of Andraste in particular. No doubt he was looking for something to put in his next book. Cullen noticed, but then, he had a bad habit of staring at Narvi whenever she was visible. Even if she was a tiny blot on the mountain face hiking back from the Hinterlands, he would turn his gaze away from the recruits toward her. Like a flower facing toward the sun, he thought ruefully.

He was staring at her now. His feet were moving toward the camp on their own, but his eyes were fixed on the side of her head. Her face was still hidden behind tufts of fur, or he would be looking there. Her breathing had slowed but not stopped; she seemed to be simply asleep.

Let her sleep, he thought. She had been through enough for one night. She had been through enough for a lifetime.

Mother Giselle greeted Cullen when he finally reached the edge of the site where the Inquisition was camped for the night. Most of the soldiers, those who were still able-bodied enough to work, were hard at it pitching tents for those less able. The most critical of the tents, those for the wounded and the ill, were already set up and the soldiers had begun working on tents for everyone else. Chantry personnel darted this way and that between tents and carts of supplies, whatever they needed to tend to the wounded and ease the passing of those who weren't going to make it.

“You found her!” Giselle exclaimed when she saw Narvi's form.

“She needs blankets, fire, anything to warm her up,” Cullen insisted. He wasn't trying to sound so brusque, but it was an emergency after all, and this was the _Herald_ they were talking about.

“Yes, of course,” replied Mother Giselle. “Bring her to one of the triage tents and we will take care of her.”

“No!” It came out like a reflex. Cullen had no excuse for his outburst, but he knew if he walked her into one of those tents he would be shooed away from her side. He wasn't ready for that. “Er, that is—we can't keep her with the other wounded. She's had contact with a darkspawn. I haven't seen any signs of blight in her yet, but the men in there have open wounds. We can't risk infecting them.”

Mother Giselle seemed to accept this logic as sound, and she suggested that Cassandra and the other recruits, who had just caught up, get a private tent set up for Narvi. In the mean time she pointed Cullen in the direction of one of the campfires.

Moments later he was sitting on a crate beside that fire. He had Narvi wrapped in a woolen blanket and cradled in his arms. It took so much longer than he liked, but her skin at last returned to its normal color. Her vallaslin stood out again, the elegant curves of its design a sharp but flattering contrast against the structure of her face. Cullen wasn't sure which god her markings represented, but he was willing to give a blanket thank you to every elven Creator god there was if there was even a chance one of them had worked in concert with the Maker to bring her back to him—to _them_.

Cullen sighed heavily. It used to be, if not easy then at least manageable, to ignore her and go about his own business. It would be much more difficult after tonight.

He knew it was likely the result of delirium, but she had acknowledged him. She had one word to say when she recovered a small piece of consciousness, and she had said his name. She tried to smile at him. In that moment, no matter how foolish it might seem in retrospect, he considered himself chosen, her champion, for lack of a better term. Whatever happened in the future, he would remember tonight, remember the feeling spreading through him as he held her close: a warm, liquid tingling from his head to his toes, a sense of having found, _finally,_ a place where he felt he belonged _._ He couldn't tell if he wanted to yell something at the top of his lungs, or close the little distance between them and kiss her, or if he wanted to cry his relief that she was alive, and seemed like she would recover. Maybe he wanted to do all three. If this was what it felt like to fall in love then it was a lot more complicated than the stories would have had him believe.

Dared he? Fall in love with her?

It could only end in ruin, he thought bitterly.

“Commander?” Mother Giselle's gentle voice poked through his thoughts. “We're ready for her; bring her over.”

Cullen had no more emotional endurance left to stretch out between what he wanted and what he thought _she_ wanted. It was time to relinquish her. He hesitated only a moment longer; this might be the only time in his life he would get to hold her; shouldn't he cherish the moment? Or would it be better to get it over with, so he could stop torturing himself? He adjusted her in his arms and walked her over to the tent. It was secured tightly against the biting wind, and inside there were a number of blankets and furs stacked on the end of a cot. Cullen could not find any fault with the appointments, so he laid her down on the cot and slowly pulled the edge of one of the extra blankets up and over her, all the way up until it tucked under her chin.

He was about to turn and leave when he heard her stir. At first he thought she only meant to readjust herself in her sleep, but she woke up, just enough to push her hand out from her blanket cocoon and take hold of his hand.

“Cullen. Thank you,” she whispered, her throat too hoarse and weak to use her voice.

That warm tingling feeling came back full force. Twice now she had acknowledged him by name, of all the things she could have said.

Cullen suspected that he would never have another chance for this. He pulled his hand away just long enough to ease off his glove. She watched it all with dreamy, drowsy eyes, but she smiled like warm sunshine when his fingers, bare and hot to the touch, entwined with hers. It was their first ever skin-to-skin contact; he believed then that it would also be their last.

“Sleep well and heal,” he bade her gently.

“You too,” Narvi returned. How very like her to consider the feelings and needs of others even when her very life hung in the balance. He hardly felt worthy of her consideration, even though he was almost certainly in need of _someone's_ concern. No doubt he looked more than a little worse for wear after the battle _and_ the search across the mountain. No doubt he would be horribly sore in the morning and definitely in need of her compassionate well wishes.

It tore him apart to leave her there, but Mother Giselle had matters well in hand. She would take care of his— _their_ —Herald. In the mean time Cullen knew he had other duties to attend. He and Cassandra, Leliana, and Josephine needed to make some important decisions about what to do next. The sooner he sought them out for a conference, the sooner they could come to a consensus, the less likely they all were to die starving in the snow for arguing about it all. As he let go of her hand and watched it recede back under the edge of her blanket, he was reminded of something else his supervising Mother had said to him after his practice vigil.

She asked him why he felt pity for the last burning candle.

He replied that it wasn't fair that one candle should have to light the entire Chantry all by itself.

She asked why he did not use its flame to re-light any of the others so the one candle could become many burning candles.

He said he didn't even think about that; he could only think about protecting the last one left.

She gently reminded him that by protecting that one candle, his hands blocked its light from reaching the corners of the room. In his need to protect, he nearly smothered it out.

Cullen tore his eyes away from Narvi. He had to let her go, he knew. He had to let the flame inside her burn on its own. Let Mother Giselle tend to her, re-light all those other candles that had gone out inside her. Cullen could do no more for her, and if he tried he would only get in the way. He would only smother her.

A frustrated sigh like a growl escaped him, filled the air around his head with white mist. He wanted to hit something, or yell at someone. He hated feeling this helpless.

Cullen turned and sought out Cassandra and the others. There was nothing he could do for Narvi, but he could do something for everyone else, and right now what he could do was help the others make their big decisions.

 


End file.
